


as naturally as breathing

by casualbird



Series: dedue week 2020 [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Developing Relationship, Getting Together, M/M, No Spoilers, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), technically a five times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:47:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22135039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casualbird/pseuds/casualbird
Summary: Dedue doesn't intend to get closer to Raphael. It's just... something that happens, instinctually and inexorably.Written for Dedue Week day one--Nature.
Relationships: Raphael Kirsten/Dedue Molinaro
Series: dedue week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1593229
Comments: 22
Kudos: 60





	as naturally as breathing

Raphael falls easily into step with the Blue Lions, showing up to their homeroom one Garland-Moon morning as if he’d been doing it all his life. His smiles are genuine and easy, and he rattles off corny jokes and charming anecdotes just as readily, and like that he makes himself at home, giving piggyback rides to Annette, sharing Ingrid’s meat buns, taste-testing Mercedes’ latest treats. Even Felix doesn’t mind him, stifling whatever annoyance he might feel because if he’s _got_ to learn how to fend off someone more powerful than him, he’d rather do it with the boor than with the Boar.

After that, it becomes too easy for their paths to cross, for them to be together. They meet in the training yard, on weekend weeding duty, on their way to and from the dorms. They see each other sometimes in the greenhouse, when Raphael gathers flowers for Ignatz’s still lifes. He makes a point of sitting beside Dedue in their strategy lecture, waving hello every time, asking questions about details that he’s unclear on during breaks.

And in those snatches of time, as Raphael trims the flower stems, as Dedue packs his things up after class, Raphael asks after him. How he’s doing, if he thinks he’s getting any stronger.

Asks Dedue about _himself,_ no matter how many times Dedue warns him off, as if it’s just baked into him to be friendly, as if amity comes to him like blinking.

So Dedue answers, clipped, laconic. His favorite color is blue, his birthday is the last day of the Verdant Rain Moon. His favorite bird is the Duscur Goldfinch. He’s doing fine, thank you.

The first few times, he assumes it’s just niceties, but after Raphael starts sitting with him in the dining hall, shoveling food into his mouth, chatting all too pleasantly, Dedue can no longer swallow the impulse to warn him away.

“You ought to stay away from me,” he says, practiced and grim. “It can only harm your reputation to be seen with... someone like me.”

Raphael freezes, mouth full, and cocks his head.

A sigh hangs in the air, as heavy as Dedue’s shoulders, as the vise that tightens around his head. “Someone from Duscur,” he clarifies.

The furrows that form in Raphael’s brow are deep, but they only last a moment. After all, it doesn’t occur to him to do anything other than flash that doggedly cheerful smile, wave one dismissive hand, tell him in that aw-shucks tone of his that he is, as ever, not worried about a thing.

* * *

The decision comes to him as naturally as breathing. It’s only his responsibility as Raphael’s classmate, and it’s been bothering him besides. Dedue has borrowed one of Raphael’s shirts off of the clothesline almost before he’s realized that he’s doing it.

Sure, he’s got to miss teatime with the Professor, got to work double-time on kitchen cleanup duty, got to fill his lamp with midnight oil to manage it, but it simply never occurs to him not to. And the next morning, with a gentle smile on his face, with bloodshot eyes and weary fingers, he hands Raphael his shirt back, wrapped in butcher paper and twine, the buttons reinforced, every seam let out an inch.

When Raphael unwraps it, shakes it out, when Dedue demurs and looks at his feet and explains the work he’s done, it doesn’t _occur_ to Raphael not to holler out his gratitude, not to clutch Dedue against his chest, to squeeze him until they’re both running out of breath.

Dedue tempers the startled smile on his face, shaking fingers rushing to marshal his hair back into place.

He hedges, fixes his eyes back on the toes of his boots. “I’d encourage you, once again,” he says, voice heavy and steely as his great shield, “to consider your reputation. People will not take kindly to such,” and he searches for the words, frowning, _“displays of affection,_ toward a man of Duscur.”

Raphael’s smile falters, softens, turns sympathetic. It makes Dedue feel as if a knife is twisting somewhere in him. Raphael just sighs, folds his fingers together. Brightens once more, after a moment.

“Don’t you worry about it,” he says, and his voice is unbelievably kind, even if it is a little too loud, “not one bit, you hear me? I’m your friend!”

Dedue can’t think of what to say, so he just sighs, looks down.

* * *

Some weeks after that, in battle, Raphael doesn’t have to think before hurling himself into a swarm of bandits. They think they can exploit Dedue’s altruism, think they can catch him at his unguarded back while he hurries in a tempest of clanging armor-plates to Dimitri’s side.

They’ve got another thing coming, though, and it’s Raphael at a full bull-rush, bellowing and slashing with his heavy, wicked claws, tearing through them like wet parchment.

Dedue, wearing the blinders of his own devotion, doesn’t notice. He hears about it in the dizzy, aching aftermath, from wryly smiling Mercedes, and suddenly his still-clenched jaw unsticks.

On their return to the Monastery, he pulls Raphael aside in the corridor and tells him, voice an axe-blade, _never_ to do such a reckless thing again.

* * *

It’s instinct that brings Dedue to the kitchens late one night, when the Wyvern-Moon chill creeps under his bedclothes, reminds him of the childhood nights he spent creeping into bed between his parents, huddling under homespun quilts that are now nothing more than windblown ashes.

He has to remind himself to breathe, but all the rest of the motion is automatic, below thought. He’s halfway through his second batch of his mother’s crisp cinnamon cookies before he realizes that he’s got nothing to _do_ with them, that there’s more than he can possibly polish off himself.

So. He settles himself, suddenly exhausted. Moves his leaden hands through the process of finishing up, sighing on every other breath. He packs them away in a basket, shuffles back to bed.

After lessons the next day, he gives them away. Always looking down, always quiet. He brings some to Ashe first, since it’s just been his birthday. Mercedes and Annette take some, grinning and giggling and raving over the taste. Sylvain snags a few, and some extra for Felix--says they’re spicy enough that he’ll like them.

There are still too many left, though, and just as he’s about to leave the basket in the dining hall, Raphael comes blustering in with that big boyish smile, calling out to Dedue, thanking him for the nth time for altering that shirt.

“You are welcome to it,” Dedue says, and before he can think, holds out the basket. “To these as well.”

Looking down, he doesn’t see the wonderment that spreads like marmalade over Raphael’s face. He feels it, though, in the elated sound of Raphael’s gasp, the pressure of a warm, wide hand clapping him grateful on the back.

And then Raphael’s hand is gone, and there’s a crunching sound, and Dedue’s eyes flick up just in time to see that broad blithe face suspended in a kind of ecstasy, to watch those kind eyes flutter shut in bliss. _“Damn,”_ he breathes, mouth full. _“Dedue._ Marry me _right now.”_

And suddenly something in him says that Raphael has gotten too close, speaking over another thing that gripes that he isn’t close _enough,_ and Dedue’s insides are a macramé mess, and on impulse he excuses himself, hurries to the greenhouse, weeds the garden beds until the sun is down and there’s nothing left in his mind.

* * *

When Dedue leaves his room next morning, stiff and bleary-eyed and weary, Raphael is waiting. Dedue stammers an instinctual apology, asks if he’s been waiting long.

“Nope,” says Raphael, cheery, “I just knew you’d be gettin’ up about now. Had to give you this,” he explains, holding out the basket.

Dedue takes it from him, nodding, still considerably bemused. “I, er. Thank you, Raphael. Only--this isn’t mine, I borrowed it from the dining hall.”

“Oh! Alright, we can bring it back. I’ll walk with you.”

And they walk together, falling in step, the dewy grass of the courtyard wetting their shoes. There’s a morning nip in the air--Raphael folds his arms, shivers.

“Are you cold?”

He nods, looking sheepish. “Home’s way far south of here. I dunno how you Faerghus people deal with it!”

There’s only one thing to do for that. Dedue sets down the basket for a moment, starts fumbling with the buttons on his uniform jacket. “Take this. Duscur is... far to the north. I will be fine.”

But Raphael won’t have it, holding up his hands as if to block a punch. Alarm is splattered all over his face.

“N-no way! I couldn’t do that! You’ll freeze to death!”

Dedue can’t help but laugh, a half-baked, soft sound that he hides behind one hand. With the other, he offers the jacket once more. “I’ll do no such thing,” he says, dryly. “I insist.”

He takes it, swearing under his breath as he slips it on, finds that it--more or less--fits. A frisson of awe darts across his face, and it can’t just be because the jacket is actually big enough.

Well. He can’t do the buttons up, but it serves well enough to dull the pins-and-needles of the mountain air.

“Dedue,” he says, a dumbfounded little smile creeping across his face. “You might just be... the kindest person I’ve _ever_ met.”

He’s met with silence, with a slowly shaken head. Still, nothing can hide the color that creeps across Dedue’s cheeks, red like Duscur poppies, like overworked hands.

“I mean it!” Raphael shifts his weight, setting a firm stance. “I do! Everything you do for me! For everyone! You work so _hard,_ Dedue! Do you really think people just... take you for granted?”

And Dedue is still speechless. It’s foolish, he knows, but there’s just... nothing in his head.

He doesn’t... he doesn’t think he’s ever thought of it that way.

Something in him pleads him to _get out get out get out,_ that it’s too much to be _seen_ like this, that there must be somewhere he can... make himself useful, while also hiding away.

He doesn’t move. Just stares into Raphael’s burning face, just--feels himself shaking, a little.

“I want to help you like you help me! I want to spend time with you, and I don’t want to hear any more crap about what people are gonna think of it! I wanna be your friend, Dedue, I’ve been trying so hard to be your friend.”

He sighs, shoulders going slack.

“Everyone feels like they can lean on you. Well--not Felix, but I don’t think I’ve ever met someone as rude as Felix. I’m serious! I heard his daddy’s real important, but that boy talks like he was raised in a barn! It ain’t right.”

That gentle laughter wells up in Dedue’s throat again, and though he tries to keep it down, that just makes it worse. He snorts, by all the little gods, he _snorts,_ and shakes with silent laughter, and feels wetness in the creases at the corners of his eyes.

“Ugh, that’s not my point. My point is I can lean on you. I can trust you. And I want you to be able to trust me! I want to--I’m not good at words, Dedue. But I--I’ve learned more about Duscur, since I joined the Blue Lions. I know _\--sort of know--_ what all you’ve been through. And I’ll be there for you, whether it’s about _that_ or--or anything else, whether you want me to or not!”

And Dedue has stopped laughing, has stopped breathing, stopped doing anything except staring, still staring at Raphael’s face. At the set of his jaw, the sweat on his brow, the sparks flying from his eyes.

Every instinct, every rule he’s ever burned into the back of his mind, every knee-jerk reflex he _has_ is telling him to get out.

He doesn’t.

Dedue breathes.

“Alright,” he says, and it feels like lead is draining from the tips of his fingers, feels like tearing off some ballast he’d never even known he had. “Alright, Raphael.”

And suddenly, it doesn’t occur to him to do anything other than shake his head, flash a gentle, nascent smile. Say, in a small voice, “my friend.”

* * *

And, months later, when Dedue’s dress boots crunch in the fresh snow as he retreats from the ball, it’s all Raphael can think to do to follow him.

To guide him back to the kitchens, where it’s dim and warm and still, where the uproar of the party is nothing more than distant whispers.

To put on a pot of his favorite cinnamon tea, to sit him down, to speak to him softly, rub his back.

To ask, later, once the tea’s gone, if Dedue would like a kiss.

It doesn’t occur to Dedue to say anything but _yes._

**Author's Note:**

> hello everyone! i really hope you enjoyed this as much as i enjoyed writing it! i just want dedue to be loved...
> 
> i also hope everyone is having fun with dedue week thus far! while it was... kind of a self-serving move for me, to get people to feed me, i'm really pleasantly surprised to see how people are engaging with it!
> 
> as always, all feedback is appreciated, and i'd love to hear what you think of my work! you're also welcome to hang out with me on [twitter,](https://twitter.com/bird_scribbles) provided that you're 18+
> 
> thanks for reading and i'll be back again tomorrow!


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